Here’s a fantastic idea for a product: A coffee maker that responds to voice commands…just not a voice command to “make me some freaking coffee!” More »
Does bossing your gadgets around make you feel like a big man? If so, you will love the Figura. It vacuums, waxes floors, and you can verbally abuse it to your heart’s content.
The Moshi IVR clock is one of those rare, heartwarming products that serves two marginalised demographics: the blind and the chronically rude. For blind folks the benefit is obvious, as all of the clock’s major functions are controlled with simple verbal commands. This includes alarm deactivation, but not necessarily how you’d expect. “Gggugugughghghhhhh” or “SHUT UP” won’t do the trick — you’ve got to greet Moshi to initiate voice commands, then politely ask it— uhh, her — to turn off the alarm. Sort of like if you’re talking to a human, if that human hovers by your bed and played a plastic recorder into your ear every morning at 7:30am.
Treo 800w users can finally do voice dialling over their Bluetooth headsets with this software update pack. One caveat is that you’ll need to have the TREO800w-1.03-SPNT as your current “Software Version” under your About screen, so if you don’t, you’ll have to update to that first. What’s the point of using your Bluetooth headset in the car for safety reasons when you have to look down at your phone to dial anyway? [Palm]
Talking to your gadgets is the first sign of madness, but people who insist on doing it should look at Pioneer’s AVIC-F systems. The three models, the AVIC-F700BT, AVIC-F900BT and the AVIC F90BT all have a type of voice control developed by Pioneer alongside VoiceBox Technologies, which filters out the “um” and “ah” in everyday conversations to decipher your commands.
Thanks to an agreement with Nuance Communications, Palm will be delivering voice command capabilities to Palm OS supported smartphones like the Centro and the Treo. More specifically, Palm will be utilizing Nuance’s VSuite apps to handle functions like name dialing, digit dialing, message addressing for text, picture, and video messages as well as application launching.
